Page 57 - Flathead Beacon // 11.2.16

MOUNTAIN EXPOSURE
OUTDOORS IN BRIEF
FLATHEAD LAKE BIO STATION LANDS $2 MILLION GRANT
The University of Montana’s Flat- head Lake Biological Station has been awarded a $2 million grant to study diversity among insects, crustaceans and other arthropods in river ood- plains and how they might be a ected by climate change.
The four-year National Science Foundation award went to researcher Gordon Luikart and co-investigators Jack Stanford, the former director of the biological station on Flathead Lake, and Brian Hand. The funding is provided through the NSF Dimen- sions of Biodiversity program.
“River oodplains are among the most diverse yet endangered landscapes on Earth due to human encroachment, shifts in river ow regimes and climate change,” Lui- kart said.
He said the project will use novel genomic tools and modeling frame- works to assess the genetics, popu- lations and functional trait diversity among oodplain arthropods, which includes insects, arachnids, myria- pods, and crustaceans. Researchers
will study oodplains in Montana’s Crown of the Continent ecosystem, as well as Washington’s Methow drain- age, in collaboration with Amanda DelVecchia of Allegheny College and U.S. Geological Survey biologists Clint Muhlfeld and Joe Giersch.
“This research will build upon 40 years of work by our former sta- tion director Jack Stanford and col- leagues at the biostation, who inten- sively studied the Nyack oodplain on the Middle Fork of the Flathead River near Glacier National Park,” Luikart said.
The grant also will train a new gen- eration of high school students, col- lege students and public citizen scien- tists about oodplain biodiversity and environments through “bioblitzes” – intensive, 24-hour, sampling events that may discover new species. Volun- teers also will be involved in seasonal sampling throughout the year.
The Flathead Lake Biological Sta- tion in Yellow Bay is one of the oldest active biological eld research sta- tions in the U.S.
OUT OF BOUNDS ROB BREEDING ACCESS ON THE BALLOT
FEW OF US ARE ONE-ISSUE VOT- ers, but as far as elections go, this is a one-issue column. That issue is access.
Most Montanans – as well as out-of- state visitors – support the state’s Stream Access Law, considered the gold standard as far as these things are concerned. Most also support maintaining public owner- ship of public lands.
Unfortunately, the Stream Access Law is under attack. Back in the early 1990s, when things rst started heating up in the Bitterroot, it was hard to get people to recognize the threat. There, a group of landowners tried to block access to a branch of the Bitterroot River known as Mitchell Slough. That battle raged until 2008 when the Montana Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the Slough was part of the river.
More recently the action has been on the Ruby River. There, landowners a xed barbed wire to bridge abutments to prevent anglers and other river users from reaching the water.
Those folks were just following the long-standing tradition of using the pub- lic right-of-way that extends beyond the asphalt to reach what was essentially another public right of way: the river.
That case also landed in the Supreme Court. Again, the court ruled in favor of public access.
And then there’s the almost cult-like obsession some of our political leaders have developed for transferring owner- ship of federal lands to the states. Listen- ing to these folks is almost Ka aesque. No amount of reason will change their minds. Not the fact that states can’t a ord to assume ownership, or that states rou- tinely have to sell lands to generate reve- nue, or that state lands often are not actu- ally open to the public.
The reality is transferring federal lands to the states ultimately means transferring them to private ownership.
Hunters and anglers blessed to live in the West understand how good we’ve got it. I either hunt or sh more than 100
times a year, and I do so almost always on public lands. I don’t have to ask permis- sion. I don’t need to pay a fee. I’m free to hunt and sh when I decide I’m ready to go, because I own the land I’m using.
That kind of freedom, freedom that allows everyone, regardless of rank or position in society, to step out onto their land and gather food for themselves and their family, has become a kind of anath- ema for this new, anti-public-land move- ment. They see millionaires and paupers alike, all free to use this great gift of pub- lic land our forebears were wise enough to leave behind, and it enrages them.
They’re dedicated to destroying the most egalitarian system of land and wildlife management our planet has ever known, and replace it with one where everyone has to pay an entrance fee.
So remember when you go to the polls that groups like the Montana Growth Network dumped $900,000 into a Montana Supreme Court race in 2012. Remember that $400,000 came from two men, Charles Schwab, who donated $300,000, and James Cox Kennedy, who gave $100,000. Schwab is one of the land- owners who tried to block access to the Bitterroot, and Cox strung up the barbed wire on the Ruby.
And remember that the judicial can- didate they backed voted against access on the Ruby.
I’m not going to tell anyone how to vote. There’s plenty of information available for citizens who want to edu- cate themselves on which candidates are likely to support, and which are likely to oppose, public access.
No matter what you decide under- stand this: Montana’s Stream Access Law is a target. It will take a concerted ght by state residents, as well as river-loving types across the country, to save it from thisassault.
Some of the people on the ballot next week will make this ght harder. If you love recreating on Montana’s rivers you better gure out who is who before you vote.
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NOVEMBER 2, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
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